Just heard on the news on the radio that ACTU wants the 1.4 million award wage earners to have a pay rise of $27 a week (in Australia). Made me wonder. Who gives us a pay rise when we deserve it, or find that we've been on the same rate for several years? We do. But do we? Probably worth looking at each year, when you plan your year and set goals (I hope you do that each year). Assessing what you're worth and how you're fairing is an important part of running your business and making sure … [Read more...]
Virtual Assistant Newsletters
I wrote a post some time ago about Free Resources Virtual Assistants love and Carla has left a comment asking about Virtual Assistant newsletters. She's looking for a list of them. If you write a Virtual Assistant newsletter then why not leave a link for it here in the comments so Carla (and others) can come have a look and subscribe if they like what they see? … [Read more...]
Planning to attend a conference, or …
Still coming back down to earth after our fantastic event, the Australian VA Conference (AVAC) a couple of days ago. It was great to meet face-to-face the names I've come to know so well over the internet for some years. And to meet new names, people I hadn't met online before but who are venturing into the Virtual Assistant world. However, there were many who did not come, for several reasons, and a couple who didn't turn up, although they had booked to come. I received emails of apologies … [Read more...]
AVAC – until next year
Well, by the verbal and written feeback I've heard/seen so far, it would seem that the AustralianVAConference (AVAC) has been a success and is definitely something the VA Community would like on the calendar as an annual event. There was a lot of buzz at the end of each day and it was great to see virtual friendships strengthed by face-to-face meetings and new friendships forged. A mix of brand new VAs (or those who haven't yet begun) right through to those who have many, many years of … [Read more...]
Australian VA Conference this week!
Well, it's almost here. Can't believe all the months of planning is now going to come to a halt with the event taking place on Friday and Saturday this week. If you are planning to come but haven't yet booked, it's not too late but the cut-off is Wednesday. So get your bookings in now. If you can't attend both days, you can elect to come for just one day. I'm hoping to see a lot more Melburnians attending - it's in your home state and you don't need to worry about airfares and accommodation … [Read more...]
How do you recruit clients?
This was a question asked on a VA forum. The new VA had suggested she might go cold calling and wanted suggestions on what to do. This is my answer to her. I would recommend, that rather go out and doing cold calling, you actually spend time meeting people and getting to know them. Networking is what you want to do, rather than recruiting. Networking is about meeting people, getting to know them and their needs, developing relationships. If you don't already know a number of business people you … [Read more...]
AVAC – Only two weeks away
I feel the excitement beginning to mount as VAs around Australia anticipate meeting one another face-to-face - many for the first time. Our colleagues in the US, Canada and elsewhere I know want to join us and hopefully they can for the next one. I believe we might even have a visitor from Turkey - a lady who contacted me some weeks ago about attending and she needed to organise a Visa. You can find out who's coming by going to that page at the AustralianVAConference website. Many of the … [Read more...]
Marketing – make sure you’re ethical
On a VA forum recently one of the members mentioned she'd discovered that another VA business was using the name of her business in their Google Adwords. She has requested they take them down immediately and several other members came back with messages of support. While I do also support the concern of this VA I wanted to let her know how I had inadvertently done a similar thing only a couple of years ago. Here is my story: That's not good but it can happen accidentally too, believe it or … [Read more...]
Making the customer wait
I posted a new job lead to my team of VAs and one of the responses I got both surprised me but also made me realise that perhaps some VAs (particularly newer ones) probably thought it was ok to do this. Make the client wait. The response was: Could you kindly forward on his details to me and I will contact him within 24 hours. My reply to her was: I strongly suggest you reply to him today, sooner rather than later. Clients will rarely wait 24 hours before hearing back from someone - … [Read more...]
